


The Bold, The Steadfast, The Shrewd, And The Sly

by thebibliophile_rises



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Hermione Granger, Eventual Romance, Fudge is a scumbag, Harry and Hermione are basically siblings/platonic bffs, Magical Inheritance, Minerva McGonagall cares about her students, Morally Ambiguous Dumbledore, Muggles aren't useless, The House of Black, The House of Potter, Wizarding Politics, and she's a very scary woman, but not between Harry and Hermione, goblins are helpful if you bother to be polite, so is Umbridge, you'll just have to wait to find out who! because right now they're literally eleven
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 04:48:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19940455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebibliophile_rises/pseuds/thebibliophile_rises
Summary: In which Hermione Granger acquires, over the course of her first year at Hogwarts-- and in no particular order-- a friend; a familiar; a somewhat-sapient knife of dubious morality; a House; another friend; and several mentors in the form of several very kind portraits, as well as Professor Babbling.





	The Bold, The Steadfast, The Shrewd, And The Sly

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, y'all! I've recently made a resolution to write and post more fanfiction, as opposed to just reading it. I think that my ratio of consumption to production has been way to skewed towards consuming other people's work, and I think it's far past time that I start creating my own works and working on my writing regularly. To that end, I'll be posting every WIP in my files that has at least one chapter. Here's the second one!
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. If I did, I wouldn't be facing the prospect of paying back a truly depressing amount of student loans after college.

_An Unplottable location, somewhere in the Cambrian Mountains of Wales_

It had been far too long, Bellatrix reflected in the moments after the birth of her daughter, since she had had her thoughts so completely to herself; no Amortentia was clouding her reasoning, no subtly-placed compulsion charms were influencing her actions, and, with the Dark Lord otherwise and so very, very fortunately occupied convincing the vampires to join his cause, the restrictions he had placed on her magic had unraveled enough that she could--and had-- finished shredded them to nothingness herself.

That was fortunate, as she would need clear thoughts and as much power as she could muster to accomplish what she hoped to this night.

She cleared her throat; it was hoarse after the hours she had just passed screaming, but her voice emerged as steady and commanding as it ever had been. “Travers, Dolohov, _husband_ \--” the last was said with a measure of disdain that rivaled that of her Aunt Walburga’s for Muggles-- “the birth is witnessed; leave, and take the midwife with you.”

It was an order, and no-one in the room misconstrued it as anything different; they obeyed her with alacrity, accustomed as they were to the capricious cruelty she had demonstrated under the Dark Lord’s command.

Rodolphus alone-- Rodolphus the _fool_ , the _traitor_ , her husband who had sold her to the Dark Lord, body and soul, in exchange for the _honor_ of bearing his Mark-- hesitated on the way out the door.

“She’s a beautiful child, Bellatrix,” he said quietly. “You have done a great service for the Dark Lord by bearing his heir.”

“Yes, _husband_ ,” she drawled. “She _is_ a beautiful child, is she not? And so very, very clearly _not_ yours." She stroked the top of her daughter’s sleeping head tenderly. “My curls, my grandmother’s coloring, the Dark Lord’s eyes-- such a _gorgeous_ combination, don’t you agree?”

“I suppose,” she continued thoughtfully, “that I should be grateful that you whored me out to the Dark Lord like a common harlot; she’s much prettier than any child of ours would have been, after all.”

She smiled; it was all teeth. Rodolphus paled, and, clearly unsure of how to respond, gave her a short nod and left the room.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Bellatrix climbed out of the bed-- careful not to jostle the child in her arms too much-- and retrieved her wand from the table on which it had been placed when she began labor; after that, it was a work of mere moments to reinforce the doors and ward the room against any form of incoming magical travel, and of but a moment after that to weave a charm that would cause anyone with intent to enter her room to suddenly remember a very important errand they needed to run elsewhere.

“There,” she said quietly after she finished. “That should buy us at least a half an hour, darling.” She picked up her daughter, who looked up at her with clear grey eyes. “The Dark Lord wouldn’t have been my first choice to be the father of my child--nor Rudolphus, for that matter-- but I love you, my darling daughter, even though I’ve known you for only a half an hour at most; never doubt it. I would not send you away if I had any other choice, but I must do what is safest for you, and right now, the safest place for you to be is far, far away from the Wizarding World.”

She paused for a second. “I have read accounts from the contemporaries of the Dark Lord when he was at Hogwarts-- he was called Tom Riddle then-- and all of them agree on one thing: that he had enormous, magnificent potential.”

She traced her finger lightly over her daughter’s brow. “You, too, have that potential--perhaps to an even greater degree; you are my daughter as much as his, after all, and I am considered an extraordinary witch among a line known for producing truly great witches and wizards.”

“And I,” she continued softly, “would have you grow up happy and loved and, above all, given the choice of who you wish to be.”

She drew in a shaky breath. “You will not receive that here, and I cannot send you to any of my sane relatives; the Dark Lord would find you within days.”

“The spell I am about to use is old, old magic—mostly ritual, really, with a bit of prayer thrown into the mix-- from the times long gone by when the Goddess was worshipped openly. It will bring you somewhere safe, somewhere nothing Dark will ever harm you and where your father will never find you.”

She reached to her bedside table and pulled out an intricately twisted knot of silver wire hanging from a long, thin chain. “This necklace is an heirloom of the House of Black; my grandmother gave it to me, and I give it to you. It cannot speak, but it can guide; listen to it, and trust your instincts.”

Gently, she smoothed back her daughter’s curly hair and tucked the necklace into the tiny robes she wore.

“I don’t know if your new parents will keep the name I picked for you, but I want to say it anyway: your name is Hermione Andromeda Black, because each of those names is as beautiful and strong and regal as you will be.”

“Someday,” she said, “you’ll remember this day, darling, I promise, and you’ll know how much I love you, and how much I’m sorry that I had to send you away.”

She took another shaky breath and smiled sadly. “If I don’t stop talking now, I never will, darling, and time is short. Good luck, Hermione,” she said tenderly. “I love you, now and always; remember that, and know…” she hesitated a moment, and then continued. “Know that I am deeply sorry for all I have done in the service of the Dark Lord. I never chose this path, but I am culpable for my every action while walking it, willingly committed or no.”

Carefully, she set Hermione on her lap, then drew her wand up to her temple and closed her eyes; a moment later, she drew it away heavy with a viscously glimmering strand of silvery material. With her other hand, she folded back Hermione’s outer robe so that the necklace she had tucked in it was visible; then, gently, she settled the silver strand on the necklace.

“Ensomatóste ti mními,” she breathed; at her words, the strand dripped off her wand and wound its way around the circumference of the chain on which the necklace hung, flashed a brighter hue of silvery-blue, and faded from sight.

“There we go, darling,” she murmured as she tucked Hermione’s robes back around her and fastened them snugly. “We’re almost all set, now.”

Almost absently, she Conjured up a basket, placed it on the floor, and imbued it with permanence; in this she placed Hermione, still sleeping, and over her, a blanket. Finally, she Summoned to her side a small square of parchment and pinned it to the top of the blanket; the words inscribed upon it--a simple plea that her child be cared for and loved--were written in beautifully calligraphic script.

“Skjöldur frá veðri,” she said under her breath as she waved her wand in intricate patterns over the basket. “Custodiae a nocere.”

Protective spells complete, she kissed the top of her daughter’s head; then, very gently, she breathed out the words of a mild sleeping spell, to ensure that Hermione’s slumber would not be interrupted by the ancient magics that Bellatrix was about to harness.

When she stepped back from the basket, she seemed a different woman; her eyes took on a fierce and regal cast, and an otherwise intangible wind spun itself out of the wellspring of her power, tangling itself in her curly hair and the thin skirts of her birthing-robes.

She raised her wand, and the room grew heavy with the fullness of her magic; stretching out her free hand, she gestured towards it sharply with her wand, and a ribbon-thin line of ruby-red blood appeared against the paleness of her skin. As she spoke again, it began to drip from her cradled palm.

“With blood,” she said as she walked around Hermione’s cradle, thrice clockwise, thrice widdershins, “I draw the circle.” As she had said, so it was; droplets of blood fell from her palm in an almost perfect circle, standing in stark contrast to the golden hardwood of the floor.

“With magic,” she said, coming to a halt and twisting her wand in a complex, knotted path, “I continue it--”

Silver light flowed from her wand and wove through the bloody circle. When it came to rest, the circle glowed a strange, deep red veined with silver streams of pure magic.

“And with the very power of my soul,” she cried in a ringing tone, “I close it!”

With those words, the heaviness of Bellatrix’s power broke like a thunderclap; magic swirled around and through her in eddied, tumultuous currents even as a ring of brightly-shining gold superimposed itself over the circle of blood and silver.

For a moment, time seemed to slow, and Bellatrix saw everything—her sleeping daughter; the Death Eaters, headed by the Dark Lord himself, who had arrived sometime during the ritual and were battering at the wards she had set up (in vain, so far); and the irrevocable choice she was about to make—with an exquisite and piercing clarity.

She smiled.

“With all my love,” she said, gazing upon Hermione with love, “I fuel thy flight, beloved daughter.”

“So,” she said lowly--

“Mote.”

“It.”

“Be!” And as her voice rang out, clearer than any bell, half magic and half sound, the spell came to completion--there was an awful, tearing crushing pain—she thought she screamed-- there was a flash of brightness around Hermione’s cradle—and then, as her wards collapsed and the Dark Lord and his Death Eaters rushed into the room, all was swept into blackness.

* * *

_Three Hundred Miles Away, A Deserted Back Road, Somewhere Near Edinburgh, Scotland_

“This,” Daniel Granger observed drily in his lilting Scottish brogue as he climbed out of the broken-down car and surveyed the empty road, “was not how I imagined this morning going.”

“Agreed,” called his wife from where she she sat in the front seat of their car. “All of my beautiful plans, ruined!--” she shook her fist at the sky theatrically, “ruined, ruined, I say, by this thrice-damned pile of slime--”

“Ah, yes,” he said drolly. “Because filing paperwork at the office at precisely eight o’clock in the morning-- it’s the critical step in any plan for world domination, you know.”

His wife mock-glared at him; he didn’t bother to suppress his grin.

“I had lists of _things_ to accomplish today! A _schedule_ to follow!” she said. “Together, those constitute a _plan_ , Daniel, and now it’s been _foiled_ ,” she continued, gesturing animatedly, “by this thrice-accursed, poison bunch-backed toad! This scurvy, poxy knave, this cream-faced loon, this-- this-- this knotty-pated fool, whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch of a Volkswagon!” she declared dramatically and triumphantly as, for emphasis, she stomped on the accelerator.

Nothing happened.

“Well,” Daniel said mischievously as Emma gave the malfunctioning accelerator under her feet a _look_ , “at least it’s not as bad as that time in Budapest--”

She bolted upright. “We don’t talk about that conference.” she said severely. “The Budapest Oral Surgery Conference of ‘82 does not exist in the annals of the House of Granger, remember?”

She paused. “Unless, that is,” she continued thoughtfully, a mischievous grin creeping onto her features, “you _also_ want to talk about the Great Doily Expedition of ‘83, which, as I recall, ended with our car stuck in the middle of a sheep pen for two and a half days--”

“I’ll pass,” Daniel said hastily. He cast his eyes about for something-- _anything_ \-- to talk about besides _that_ incident. He saw begonias, trees, rocks--

He froze.

“Emma?” he asked cautiously. “Look over there, by that tree. Do you see what I’m seeing?”

She frowned. “See what? I see trees, flowers, rocks-- wait,” she said with growing concern as she unbuckled her seat belt and climbed out of the car. “Is that a bassinet?”

A thin wail floated towards them; it seemed utterly incongruous against the background of the mist-covered road and the bronzed trees.

“I would think so, yes,” he said, starting towards the source of the noise. “Emma, do we still have that wool blanket in the back of the car? The bairn might be cold--”

“No, but I’ve my jacket, and she can have that,” she said, shrugging off the item of clothing in question as she hurried besides him.

He would have wondered at her unconscious certainty that the child was a girl, but the slope leading down from the road was steep and slippery with leaves, and he was struggling to keep his feet. He slipped, once, as he descended; only Emma’s hand on his shoulder allowed him to steady himself and continue down in a controlled fashion.

The bassinet was curiously placed, relative to the road. It was set back a few meters, on a low-rising stump overhung by the curving branches of two apple trees growing in such a way that the bassinet would have been invisible from any other place on the road; dappled light streamed through the bower the branches created, and little white flowers dotted the grass underfoot.

“Look,” Emma breathed. “ _Look_ at that, Dan--”

“My God,” he murmured. “The bairn was left in an apple bower, Emma--this is like something out of the tales of fairies and changelings my gran told me when I was a wee lad.”

Emma nodded, her eyes glued on the basket. “It’s uncanny,” she said, “But in a good way, if uncanny can be good.” She paused, and frowned a little. “No, I should find another word. Uncanny isn’t right.”

“Magical, maybe?” He suggested.

“Magical,” she repeated thoughtfully, her eyes still fixed on the basket. She smiled faintly. “I like it.”

Very carefully, she reached out and lifted the basket off of the stump; on closer inspection, Daniel saw that it was intricately woven, with designs of apple blossoms and oak leaves on its body and twisting, intricate vines on the handles.

“Daniel,” she said, her voice breaking a little, “Daniel, she’s _beautiful_.”

He looked over his wife’s shoulder at the baby girl in the basket--because it was a girl; she had been right-- and his heart melted.

“Ach,” he said to the baby. “You’re a right bonny lass, aren’t you?”

He reached out and, very gently, tugged one of her curls; as it sprang back, he had to suppress a grin at the terrifically unimpressed look she gave him.

“Emma,” he said quietly, so as not to disturb the baby overmuch, “there’s a note on her blanket. Can you read it?”

“Note?” Emma asked, startled. “What-- oh, I see it now.” Very carefully, she flattened the note so that it was more easily read.

The script was beautifully calligraphic, and the paper expensive; the message read, very simply:

_Her name is Hermione Andromeda; the necklace is a family heirloom. Please find it in your hearts to love her as if she were your own, and when it comes time for her to know of me, I beg that you tell her that I have loved her since the moment of her conception. I never would have given her up had I been able to give her the life she deserves._

She looked up at him. “I like her name,” she said. “Hermione Andromeda. It rolls off the tongue, don’t you think?”

“Aye,” he murmured. “Aye, I do, as well-- Emma,” he said, only a hint of hesitation evident in his tone, “I know that we hadn’t planned on doing it for a while yet, but we are certified to foster--”

“Yes,” she said immediately. “Yes, of course. She’s beautiful, and we’ve wanted a family for such a long time, Dan. We’ll need to get the paperwork sorted out, of course, and-- and we’ll need to make absolutely sure that she’s not on the missing children list, but if she’s not--- we’ll need a _crib_ and-- and _baby books_ , we can't _just_ read _Pride and Prejudice_ to her-- oh, Dan, we’re going to have to revise our office hours if we’re going to have a baby--”

And then, from above them, a car horn honked, and a voice drifted down to the bower.

“Oi! I can see you’re broken down pretty good--anyone there?”

Dan looked at Emma, who looked back at him, tilting her head meaningfully and raising one eyebrow. He hesitated, then capitulated.

“Fine,” he said ruefully. “I give. I’ll go talk to the driver up there, but _I_ get to hold her on the way into town. The _entire_ way.”

“Deal,” Emma replied promptly, and as her husband made his way back up the slope, she leaned over the strange little bassinet and, very gently, brushed a curl out of Hermione’s eyes before dropping a soft kiss on her forehead. Then she straightened, and hovered her fingertips over the note that Hermione’s mother had left her with.

“We’ll take care of her,” she promised softly. “We’ll give her the very best life we can, and we'll love her to the moon and back a _thousand_ times, and I promise, whatever you sent her away from, whyever you did it-- we’ll protect her. I _swear_ it.”

And then Dan poked his head back over the ridge and gestured for her to come up, so she picked up Hermione’s basket, being very careful not to jostle her, and began to pick her way back towards the car, stepping around the trees and the great piles of autumn leaves.

But when she reached the top of the ridge, something prompted her to turn around and look back; and somehow, when she did, she found that she was entirely unsurprised to find that Hermione’s strange bower of apple trees had disappeared without a trace.

* * *

_An Unplottable location, the Cambrian Mountains, Wales_

Pale hands clenched around a long, bleached-white wand.

“Burn the bodies,” Tom Riddle snarled. “And _find my daughter_.”


End file.
